4.
Original Title: Found footage has been the dominant new mode of horror in American films of the 21st century. It has been in Europe, though, a region less devoted to using found footage films all the time, that the technique has been used to best effect. The standout examples of European found footage films have been Norwegian fantasy feature Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren) and this Catalan zombie picture. stars Manuela Velasco, previously best known as the child actress playing the daughter of a transsexual in Almodovar's 1980s melodrama The Law of Desire, as a TV presenter filming a documentary in which she follows a Barcelona fire crew for the night. When the firemen are called to an apartment block to free a woman from her apartment and she starts attacking and biting them, everyone gets sealed in the building by the military with the film crew there to capture every moment. The confined setting of the apartment block (albeit not quite so confined as Buried) gives a strong focus. Directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza make great use of the somewhat Gothic style and big wrought iron central staircases of an old Barcelona apartment building, which Balaguero had also put to good use in To Let (Para Entrar a Vivir), part of the anthology series Films to Keep You Awake (Peliculas Para No Dormir). This anthology was a follow-up to the classic TV series Stories to Keep You Awake (Historias Para No Dormir), which was produced by famous horror director Chicho Ibanez Serrador, the man behind creepy 70s classic Who Can Kill a Child (also known as Island of the Damned). Plaza directed the series' Christmas film and the whole set is well worth checking out for fans of the current generation of Spanish horror filmmakers. 's huge success has resulted in the inevitable American remake and a series of sequels. The original star and directors returned for the solidly decent 2, set, Halloween 2-style, directly after the first part, before the directors split to make parts three and four separately. Plaza's wedding set 3: Genesis is silly and disposable, while Balaguero's 4: Apocalypse is more of a normal sequel, following up the first two, and due for release next year.
See this if you liked: That US remake, Quarantine, is one of the most closely faithful remakes of any foreign film, so if you liked that it's probably worth going back to the source, albeit a little pointless as you already know what's going to happen. A better American found footage take on the zombie movie is genre godfather George A. Romero's return to the living dead with Diary of the Dead, a film that goes unappreciated next to his classic work. Diary... succeeds by using a variety of styles of footage to build a modern view of the zombie apocalypse as seen through online videos and handheld cameras.